


Factor One Thousand

by ApollonDeuxMille



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7238299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApollonDeuxMille/pseuds/ApollonDeuxMille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oswald glances at Jim, his words dissolving in his throat. The last time they stood together at a precipice, they were both white-faced with fear, trembling and gasping.</p><p>‘Why are we here?’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Factor One Thousand

**Author's Note:**

> A short response to a prompt of "The water looked deep and inviting" This is also posted on my Tumblr blog @delicatelyserved.

It’s a desperately hot day on the shimmering roads as they cruise beneath uninterrupted blue skies. Of the two, Jim is the only one appropriately dressed, in a white t-shirt and olive chinos. Oswald thinks he looks ridiculous, but is resentfully envious of the sun-friendly attire as he wipes his sopping forehead and yanks at his tight collar. He fumbles around with the control buttons, looking for the air conditioning, but Jim presses some tabs by his leg and the windows all gently roll down.

‘Why do you always wear so many clothes?’

Oswald fidgets. ‘I like to look good.’

Jim’s expression is imperceptible behind his large sunglasses. They flash as he turns to look at Oswald’s pink face.

‘You do look good.’ He turns back to the road. ‘But you also look like you’re dying.’ The engine hums as he pushes the car up an incline. ‘You’ll be fine once we get there.’

‘Where exactly is _“there”?’_

Jim’s mouth twitches a little. ‘It’s not far now.’

* * *

Twenty-eight minutes later, they violently pull over onto a grassy embankment.

‘This is ridiculous!’ Jim unbuckles their seat-belts. After complaining of nausea, Oswald had adjusted his seat as far back as it would go, apparently exhausted and pained. Jim, knowing immediately what was happening, having toured both Afghanistan and Iraq, battles with Oswald’s cross-tie, disposes of it in the foot-well, rips open the starched collar and starts work on the multitude of buttons.

‘A jacket–’ he snarls, shushing Oswald to maneuver his arms out of the sleeves ‘–a waistcoat _and_ a vest?’

Oswald tuts, looking down at Jim’s rough fingers as they unbutton his double-breasted waistcoat. It’s damp through with sweat and once it’s been peeled off, Jim slides the braces down Oswald’s shoulders to ruffle the sticky shirt.

‘Can you imagine what I’d look like in clothes like that?’

Jim whips off his sunglasses and glares into Oswald’s dripping face. ‘I can actually, and I think you’d look just fine!’ He’s shouting. Oswald is subdued. ‘And take those off.’

Sulkily, Oswald crouches over his mismatched knees to unlace and discard his gleaming shoes, revealing wet socks and long feet that happily rejoice at the sensation of air. He is loathe to admit that Jim is always right about his inappropriate excess of layers on days like today.

The engine purrs as it awakens again, but before they continue, Jim thrusts a bottle of water and a small bag of salted nachos at Oswald.

‘We’ll be there in a little under forty minutes, finish those up before then.’

Oswald blinks slowly at Jim’s grousing and as the car slips back onto the road, he does as he’s told.

* * *

They’re driving on a twiggy, pinecone-littered dirt road. A succulent green and red canopy sways far above them, sending maple samaras twirling gently onto the windscreen. Oswald frowns. For a wing beat of a moment he wonders if Jim is driving him to a wilderness where no one will find his body, if Jim has been burrowing further under his skin these last few months just to be able to lure him into a far flung forest and dispose of him.

‘Jim…’

‘We’re here.’

Oswald, somewhat aghast that Here is in the middle of some woods, squints through the glass at whatever he’s meant to be seeing.

‘I don’t understand?’

Jim grabs a barrel bag from the backseat and slams his door shut. He sets off, his shoes crunching over the blanketed ground, before turning back to the car and beckoning.

‘Wait, Jim–’ Oswald extricates himself from his clumsily discarded jacket and waistcoat, nearly losing his trousers before remembering to pull his braces back over his shoulders. He hobbles as fast as he can in the direction of Jim’s crackling footfalls.

Soon the gentle murmur of water drifts through the trees and bright sunbeams burst over a treeless expanse. As Oswald limps closer, he sees Jim standing at the boulder-ladened verge of a glittering pond. He turns when he hears Oswald stumble over some roots.

‘You okay? Come over here.’

With quite some difficulty, Oswald drags himself onto the enormous pale slabs beside Jim and looks down into a yawning pool of deep, twinkling blue, where the roots of the boulders descend gently into the astonishingly clear water. A skin of seedpods and rogue leaves cling to the edges. Oswald glances at Jim, his words dissolving in his throat. The last time they stood together at a precipice, they were both white-faced with fear, trembling and gasping.

‘Why are we here?’

Visibly crestfallen at the tone of Oswald’s voice, Jim lets his bag slide to the ground. ‘I used to come here a lot when I was kid. It means a lot to me.’

Oswald stares, remembering the sickness he felt as he staggered to the end of the pier, certain he had made a tremendous miscalculation, certain he was about to have his brain blasted out of his skull.

‘I’ve never shown you things that are personal to me.’

Oswald’s voice is venomous, ‘I’m _not_ a fan of swimming, Jim.’

‘I understand.’

They don’t speak as Jim kicks off his shoes, peels off his t-shirt and trousers, revealing grey swim trunks. He stands for a long while, gazing into the water. Oswald wonders what memories are swirling behind his wistful eyes and when he looks up their gazes catch each other.

‘There’s another pair of swim trunks in the bag.’

Just as he positions his feet and prepares to leap into the exquisite water, Oswald calls out.

‘Wait, stay there–’

He limps behind Jim to splay his hands across broad shoulder blades and fiercely shunts him off the ledge. Jim falls gracelessly in a mess of flailing limbs until his skin smacks against the surface of the pond. Oswald grins; it looked painful. A moment later Jim’s head shoots up and curiously he is laughing.

‘Put the swim trunks on and get in!’

Thoroughly perplexed, Oswald stares as Jim dives down to glide through the crystal water, his rippling form still visible several feet below, the veins of light dancing over his body and the rocks around him. Instantly the grey swirling mass that swallowed Oswald is forgotten, the painful ringing in his ear from the deceptive gunshot diminished. He rifles through the bag to find his gear and slips behind a slanting black willow to change.

Bashfully he returns to the water’s edge, arms crossed, hiding his pigeon-chest and shy nipples. For all their fumbling and grabbing and desperate kissing, they’ve yet to broach Oswald’s nudity, partial or otherwise.

‘Are you getting in?’

Jim launches out of the water at a shallow, pebbly place and slip-slops over, somehow just as intimidating as the night he’d grabbed Oswald’s trembling hands and firmly planted them on his naked hips. He stops when his wet chest presses against Oswald’s crossed arms, speaking with an enormously cocky lilt.

‘Do you feel better after pushing me in?’

_‘Yes.’_

‘Good,’ Jim chuckles. His eyes are roving inquisitively all over Oswald, his skin white like wild tree cotton. ‘You’re going to need sunscreen.’ A moment later and a bottle is retrieved from the bag. ‘Unfortunately I don’t have factor one thousand –’ he laughs ‘–you’ll have to make do with factor fifty.’

Jim firmly coaxes Oswald’s arms away from his chest and starts slathering the greasy, coconutty mess all over every expanse of exposed skin, cataloguing each point of ticklishness, his ribs, his belly, the backs of his knees. Once he’s finished teasing and rubbing, he gives the bottle to Oswald.

‘Now do me.’

Oswald, a little overcome by his ordeal, does nothing but stare, so Jim bends to tease his jawline, nipping at the corner of his little mouth. As Oswald opens his lips to accept a kiss, Jim draws back and leans into his ear to huskily whisper,

‘Put my sunscreen on, Oswald.’

But Oswald doesn’t, instead greedily claiming the kiss he’d just been denied.

‘Don’t tease me like that.’

‘Are you enjoying yourself now?’

The answer is another kiss, a lingering swirling of tongues which seems to last all afternoon. When they part, Oswald picks a soggy, wayward maple leaf out of Jim’s hair. They watch it float around on the pond’s inviting surface, time seeming to slow around them as they rest against each other, wondering where they’d be now if the day at the pier had never happened.

‘Did your father used to bring you here?’

‘He did.’

Oswald gently kisses Jim’s neck.

‘And now you’ve brought me here.’

Jim gently squeezes Oswald’s waist.

‘I have.’


End file.
